rabas

So Putin will assault NATO, with little spare capacity after just trying to hold back Ukraine. Not to mention Western high tech weaponry is far superior as we all now see. BTW, the Chinese are in full denial that US systems easily shoot down Putin's unstoppable (cough) 'hyperbolic' missiles. Of course he won't attack NATO, take a look at these numbers.

True but tax structure is irrelevant to whether foreigners should contribute to maintenance and operation costs that Thai pay. Anyway, everyone not living deep in the woods pays heaps of unseen embedded taxes, everywhere. My point was that Thailand can easily burden the Thai citizenry for maintenance fees but has no reasonable way except entrance fees to get foreigners to contribute. I don't see it as unfair.

They do. About 1000B just to enter the US Shenandoah National Park, about 500B average up to 1000s to enter tourist attractions in Paris. You realize that the measly 10B - 20B that poor Thai pay does not begin to cover most attractions' operating costs. That comes out of taxes on Thai people, of which tourists pay nothing! So why on Earth should a poor Thai person pay more, though taxes and high entrances costs, that a foreign tourist? And even full entrance fees in Thailand are much cheaper than the West.

You mistake "legitimate threat to sovereignty" with "a threat to Russia's/Putin's opportunistic and illegal territorial expansion". These are not the same. Your friend Mearsheimer is an ultra realest and does not suggest Russia/Putin has any moral right to Ukraine, only that fear of NATO impeding Russia's plans of imperial expansion will trigger Putin the evil one. Mearsheimer is not defending Russia as you do. He simply explains the logic behind what may happen. To better understand Mearsheimer read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer. However, you may need to remove your anti-Western glasses to see his view.

"he's always had strong links to the Shinawatra family ..." What surprise. So this won't wash. Thakisin will buy a new return ticket, this guy will be founded to own media shares or other nonsense. Rinse, spin, repeat. In reality there are only two requirements for anyone to be PM, 1) Monarchy stays, 2) Thaksin stays far away.

True, maybe need a new theory. However, when programming these kinds of pages there are often parameters for position, box size, text size, etc. Get any wrong and things disappear. Not sure if Immigration has a Thai/English option. One way to switch to Thai might be to use Chrome translate, but that may or may not show a hidden star.

Got it. Page layout software bug. 'Given name' and 'Middle name' also have no stars. What's in common? The longest labels come too close to the entry box cutting out the star. Common software bug. Switch to Thai language and see if the stars reappear. Thanks, I'll remember that. This kind of problem could get anyone.

Crimean bridge hit again! Two explosions, some reports suggest at least one span collapsed. Lights are out along one section as seen at night.

No one said mRNA vaccines contain spike proteins, the mRNA is a genetic code for the viral spike protein. The question was: do they use (produce) all or part of the spike? The quote I posted from Nature answers the question. "The uniting feature of current genetic COVID-19 vaccines is the provision of mRNAs for the whole, membrane-anchored spike protein" Perhaps you misunderstood the term "provision of mRNAs" for the spike protein. This means they provide only the code and not the protein. In scientific parlance 'spike' can equally refer to the mRNA code or its expressed protein.

No, they use the whole spike. "The uniting feature of current genetic COVID-19 vaccines is the provision of mRNAs for the whole, membrane-anchored spike protein" [ref]

Power misleading! You quote "COVID-19 was the sole cause of about 5% of listed COVID-19 deaths.'' and forget the entire following line (their bold) "In the U.S., at least 90% of such recorded deaths had COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death rather than contributing cause." They are disproving your misleading point. They continue to conclude: No evidence of overcounting.

Before upgrading to W10, first clone your precious W7 installation to a new disk, put the old disk in a drawer, then upgrade the cloned disk. This way you can easily revert back when things go bad, and, you have a full data and OS backup. Good luck. After decades of Win pain, I switched to Linux but maintain my old Win 7 installation on a dual boot system in case I must use Windows. But its not for everyone.

I agree and it's probably the best solution. The critical issue is sufficient weapons and technology fast enough for Ukraine to win. As for attacking inside Russia, if the Russians do then surely Ukraine can!

It would not require NATO to attack Russian soil. It would require NATO to defend Ukraine, which they are already doing, but without NATO troops and pilots. It would send a signal that Russia can't take over Ukraine. If you are concerned about WW3, we are already at the doorstep, this has never been a local issue. How we proceed determines whether or not it gets out of control like WW2. Stopping Putin's aggression snuffs out the candle. There are many parallels here to WW2. If you are looking for an easy answer, there isn't one. But there is a correct answer, which is not encouraging Putin.

I think everyone today needs to listen to what Carl Sagan said directly about this issue. Only he said it in 1996 in his last interview. Sagan was famous for his understanding of the relationship between science and humanity. Note, he's discussing understanding science not believing. Video starts at 1:28 with his profesy. Start at the beginning for background.

Easy one. It prevents Putin's war machine from advancing to the borders of other NATO members, many of which he has already said may be attacked.

The Russian Ruble is now freely convertible to rubble. It entered an exponential decline last month that even lies can't fix, now today it's gone ballistic.

Happiness comes in many forms. VIDEO: Eastern Ukraine closeup MANPADS intercept. When it locks on, it sounds like an old style modem carrier lock squeal. Love to have a translation.

Do you mean ... big 'shot' Russian generals?

Putin and his cronies would feel no more pain for dead Russian civilians than they do for innocent Ukrainians they regularly kill and maim. OTH, Ukraine must be able to attack any Russian force or infrastructure that contributes to the war anywhere including in Russia. Many military specialists with Washington's ear have been calling for longer range weapons to do just this, to little avail. Washington has missed important opportunities. When Putin blew up the dam, Ukraine should have been able to permanently destroy the Crimean bridge the next day. Putin would then understand that was one dam too far.

There is a Russian saying: Those who have served in the military don't laugh in the circus.

As soon as Prigozhin began his revolt, there were calls for the Belarusian military and people to overthrow Lukashenko, who had (like rat) fled the country. So Putin discovered he still needed Prigozhin, even though Prigozhin was trying to destroy him. Russian friends ...

Said with thick Natasha accent: Russian friends, kill each other.

The Russian Volunteer Corps releases video announcing that they are joining the coup. LINK English dub Heard on the net: It's not a coup, it's a Russian election ...

Video of a Russian Ka-52 helicopter just missing a hit from a Wagner Strela-10 SAM system by firing flares. This high speed SAM passes through the flares. VIDEO Two Russian helicopters bombed and destroyed a large oil depot in Voronezh to keep it from Wagner. VIDEO1, VIDEO2. Russian air strike on Wagner column on M4 highway. VIDEO Edit: Sorry, one more. Civilians welcoming Wagner in Rostov with food, explaining the pack is not open and presumably not poisoned. What a country. VIDEO